ETONE Newsletter
Contents
1. BUCKY REDDISH EDITOR MICHAEL HUTCHERSON PUBLISHER SPECIAL POINTS OF INTEREST Robert Coulter Part 3 e Birthday Bash in Georgia Tweaking a Conn 650 WOW Moments INSIDE THIS ISSUE Tweaking a 2 Conn 650 Building the 2 Rodgers Office Depot 3 20 Birthday Bash 8 3 Robert Coulter 10 Do It Yourself Theatre Organ Part 3 ETONE Newsletter There aren t a lot of things in life that we can see or experience that cause us to say Wow and get our full attention If you talk to people that love the theatre pipe organ you ll soon find out that discovering the theatre pipe organ was one of their Wow moments in life In our last newsletter we asked our readers to share their Wow moments and we got numerous responses Here are a few of them Frederick Muller e Hanging around with Ashley Miller at the 1978 Atlanta convention We usually rode the bus trips together Heard many fascinating ta les e Working on the organ crew at the old Newark NJ Stan De On The WOW factor ley Theatre which at that time was the Center for Italian culture Philip Gray e Attended a chapter meet ing to see a silent mov ie afterwards a tour of the organ chambers Being a retired Mechanical Eng am interested in anything elec tro mechanical so asked if they needed help working on the organ You know what that answer was That was 8 years ago Now am2. Chopper effecting the Solo Tibia keying but does not allow for that Vibraphone like effect w sust that other models do Editors Note If you can answer any of Craig s questions or offer him sug gestions on his project contact him by email His email address is lt b3bopjazz mailstation com gt Shanklin Music Hall Trumpets gt Aztec Theatre Glock gt Wanamaker Console View gt aE AUS m on a gt PAGE 4 Building the Redgers Difice Depot 3 20 In the family room and in my workshop a 1967 Rodgers 3 manual console having a second stop rail added There are console drawings stop lists and catalogs or organ parts strewn about It reminds me of that time 35 years ago when we were installing the Page 2 6 but there are no pipes this time lm building a virtual theatre pipe organ VTPO Sure it would be nicer to have an actual Wurlitzer 3 30 installed in a modest mansion but that just isn t going to happen Building a virtual organ can be a great alter native to sitting on the sidelines the rest of your life You get many of the same experiences as installing a real Wurlitzer Bundles of un marked wires that have to be rung out sticky pedals to clean stripping old varnish fixing contacts getting new stops engraved and cleaning rodent debris out of the console which we did in fact have to do What is a VTPO and how is it different from an electronic organ Virtual organs have pipe
3. must be correctly set for that particular tape you are using Generally the factory sets them for a certain brand of tape which they note in the owner s man ual An equally good tape from an other manufacturer may have differ ent characteristics and sound overly bright or dull To complicate mat ters the same brand of tape my differ slightly from one production run to the next plus tape manufacturers are always improving continued on page 7 their tapes They may discontinue the rec ommended tape or just make running im provements without changing the label So if your deck was somewhat old a trip to the repair shop might be due asking that the bias and Dolby level be set for the tape of your choice So there is some info on tape recording which still do Back to my Rodger s Theatre Organ prob ably have written about this before but will again The console is essentially what you would find on a pipe organ It has 2nd touch pizzicato sustunuto capture action combina tion system and control for just about every thing Since got it in 1979 which means that it is analog technology but very well done have added many real external devices which paly from the console These include 2 xylo phones 4 glockenspiels 2 cathedral chimes Wurlitzer sleigh bells marimba harp chryso glott and 32 non tonal percussions drum type things piano and accordion Most of these are powered by a 2 horsepower 3 p
4. nections at their respective power supplies and turn on the power Then check the voltage being delivered by these power supplies to ensure that they are correct The outputs should be adjusted as neces sary and rechecked as needed When eve rything checks out would suggest that you turn everything off and then connect the 5 volt connection to the 5 volt power supply ensuring that you have the polarity correct ad power the system back up Each of the SIBs RDBs and MIDI cards should light appropriately when you power up for the first time would quickly feel all of the cards to make sure none have any hot components If you find this to be the case you should turn off the system and check to see if there are any problems and fix those that you find If everything checks out at this time you should turn off all power and then recon nect the 2 volt systems to their power supply making sure that the polarities are correct and power them up You can check to see if all of the LEDs on the cards light appro priately and everything appears OK Hopefully everything will be satisfac tory Configuring The Controllers If you were careful in your wiring hopefully no smoke will be emanating from any component of your project If you press one of the organ keys pistons or SAMs nothing should happen At this point nothing is hap pening as you will need to program all of the MIDI controllers before anything works A MIDI con
5. s Off On switch that controls the power to the duplex outlets Above this box installed the 55 amp 12 volt DC power supplies These three them from interfering with the swell shoes looped all of the MIDI cables that were too long or that might interfere with the swell shoes Most MIDI controllers will have at least two MIDI cables connected to ower supplies then simply plug into them along with a 5 volt DC power con j ey Pry Pug the surface mounted duplex outlets FIGURE 5 nection and typically a telephone cable Make sure you leave room for all of these wires In addition to making room for all of the wires to be routed to all of the or gan s devices it is important to neatly cable all groups of cables appropriately You can use cabling cord if you know how to do this type of cabling but I think most build ers use nylon cable ties these days use the black versions of these cable ties as UV light does not deteriorate them All sets of cables should be fixed to the console in a some manner tend to like the black ny lon type of cable clamp that can be screwed in place with a single screw into any wooden part of the console You can see these clamps and ties in most of the accompanying photographs believe that it is a good idea to mount all of the power supplies that require connec tion to 120 volts AC in one area in your console In my console have mounted these power su
6. And size Depending on what you have availa ble this can be done for as little as 2 500 or as much as you care to spend think a very vice VTPO can be built for about 5 000 if you al ready have a good stereo system to use for the speakers My VTPO journey begins The first time I d heard the term VTPO was in March of 2010 Shortly after that joined the Yahoo VTPO news group to learn a little more about it Another planet lined up with the upcoming ATOS convention being only 3 hours away in Seattle It was the perfect storm We attended the convention and talked to half a doz en people at Artisan and Midi Con cepts Sitting on the bus all those hours probably didn t help anything either The next week found myself casually browsing Craigslist to see what was out there for consoles The idea of actually building some thing rather than just plugging it to gether was every exciting to me This was a big part of the pipe organ experience for me also wanted a real console that felt like a theatre organ decided that the best idea was to find a nice vintage Rodgers or Allen gut the electronics and replace it with new Midi electronics A few weeks or searching finally turned up a 1967 Rodgers 320 All theatre organ projects have a story or two and this one would be no exception My Rodgers was in the middle of nowhere Oregon does not have that many covered bridges but the only way to reach this organ was
7. area l live in O Fallon IL which is about 19 miles east of the St Louis Arch to give me a call and stop by and see what have Like several people who are into theatre organs am also into model trains There is s YouTube on that also So thank you for your time in reading this If you have any questions about anything just let me know J A C K Moelmann lt www jackMoelmann com gt Email Jack Moelmann com Aztec Theatre San Antonio TX toy counter PAGE 7 Let Us tear From You About Your Project If PAGE 8 Birthday Bask 3 For the past 7 years one of the most talked This year was an event that surpassed all In E Minor Body and Soul a host s about digital instruments in the organ world others On Friday the airport shuttle be favorite and Tchaikovsky s Waltz From is the Walker RTO Opus in the home of gan first with Mark Harman then Donnie Swan Lake As always Jelani s artistry Bucky Reddish The organ debuted at the Rankin and finally Jelani Eddington The and arrangements were second to 2004 Fabulous Fox Organ Weekend Atlanta weekend began with dinner that evening nonet GA in the capable hands of Dave Wicker with the artists and about two dozen mem ham who later performed the inaugural con bers of the Atlanta Chapter in attendance Mark Harman fresh from a stellar cert after the organ was installed in Bucky s including Joe Patten The most memorable performance at the ATOS Nat
8. in any pipe organ I ve chosen a more DIY approach in this case though Console Options The console is really the face of your VTPO You could and people do just stack up some of those Casio keyboards and buy a MIDI pedal board from Guitar Center It would po tentially sound just as good as any other VTPO but this is rather lacking in aesthet ics For me the console is an important part of the experience want it to look and feel like a theatre organ The other end of the spectrum is to retro fit an actual theatre organ console for MIDI output Organ specific electronics are available from Artisan Organ Syndyne Uniflex etc or you could do it yourself using general purpose MIDI components from places like Highly Liquid These are massive pieces of furniture though too big for normal sized rooms And where do you get one in good shape For most of us something a bit smaller is a better fit Small spinet electronic organs newer than about 1985 made by Yamaha Technics and others often have a MIDI output and will work fine but want a bit more of the theatre organ experience A later model Rodgers or Allen theatre or gan would have MIDI output but these can be fairly expensive and you have to maintain the original elec tronics The older pre MIDI organs turn out to be a real bargain Many are in need of repair but the keys and other contacts are in fine shape or easy enough to fix up Since all of the
9. original electronics is going out the window you don t have to worry about keeping it in working order Everything will be new and since you put it there you know how to re place it A sort of hybrid solution is to use an old organ shell but replace the keyboards with Casio or Yamaha MIDI keyboards that have been re lieved of their tacky plastic cases and trimmed out with wood Vince Kurpan gt ST be 7 and an electrical engineer so says my college diploma Over the years have taken my interest in electronics and music and combined them to make a rather large and complex theatre organ in my home Depending on who talk to it is either a pipe organ with electronics or an electronic organ with pipes In either case the present version is a Rodgers Cus tom 340 three manual theatre organ with seven ranks of pipes My parents weren t into organs or even mu sic for that matter so never had an organ at home until entered the Air Force in 1965 learned how to play the organ at church which had a 4 manual 70 rank Casavant and sang in the choir just to be close to the organ The first organ that owned was a Hammond L 100 spinet which bought very soon after went on active duty with the Air Force at Patrick Air Force Base in Cocoa Beach Fl didn t like the sound of the L 100 so rather than trading it for sometime else took the logical step and added speaker cabi nets the first ones being a L
10. program will display Configuration successfully downloaded believe it will be a very exciting milestone for you when you first see this message Once you have achieved this you can then use the Monitor function of the program to check to see if all of the organ s controls work correctly You may find that some do not The Monitor function will assist you in finding and correct ing these problems A Major Milestone Accom plished At this point in the construction of your VTPO you will not have an in strument that makes any sound but you will have a console that can be connected to a sound engine or to a pipe organ that has a MIDI digital relay installed on its pipe chests This is a major milestone in that most of the time consuming wiring has been completed and you will have com pleted the console that will allow a musician to interface with a sound engine or a pipe organ efficiently and effectively I Guess No One Is Perfect Early on in the design of my project misunderstood the requirement for the installation of MIDI controller cards to provide for reiteration sos tenuto and transposing This is re quired for pipe organs by not for a virtual organ The computer in the sound engine performs these duties in a virtual organ So the two MIDI controller cards shown in my last article to do these tasks are not required FIGURE 2 in this article has been corrected though you will see the extra car
11. the key boards if the keyboards and pistons ever need maintenance Again all that is needed to be disconnected will be a few telephone cables and some power wiring This panel and the keyboard SIBs are shown in FIGURE 3 lying on top of the solo keyboard This makes it easier to test the wiring from each key to the appropriate SIB connector Once you have all SIBs and RDBs mounted and wired you can proceed with mounting and wiring the MIDI controller boards Again these boards should be mounted in a logical order such as show in the Pictorial Flow Diagram FIGURE 2 Also keep in mind where you will be mounting your sound engine and LCD display on your console as you typically want the MIDI splitter control ler board reasonably close to this equipment You should also mount these boards in such a way as to allow their cables to be installed and not interfere with any other wiring or devices on the organ You will need some nes PO ay gt a room to fasten cables to the console In with a pair of grounded duplex out my console the MIDI controllers are lets as the bottom of the interior mounted across the rear of the kick panel with a heavy duty cord and plug to and just above the opening for the swell shoes You will note in FIGURE 4 that the blue MIDI cables are looped to prevent connect to a wall outlet A cable is also installed in this surface mounted box that is connected to the organ
12. to cross one of them and then continue a couple more miles down a dirt road and up a sort of path The old Rodgers had seen better days but was basically in decent shape and had what wanted Continued on page 5 PAGE 5 Building the Redgers Difice Depot 3 20 The keys were basswood core pipe organ keys The stop tabs were actual Wurlitzer tabs and the wood was black walnut much of it solid It was only about half working so could get it for just a few hundred dollars One problem No piano mover was going to get anywhere near this thing and it weighted a ton A piano mover would never even get his truck up that path We would have to gut this thing on site to reduce the weight than load it onto our little utility trailer But with several miles of rough dirt road was quite worried about flipping it off the trailer It all went pretty much as planned and actu ally screwed the organ down to the trailer just to make extra sure wouldn t lose it Our 6 rank Page back home was a very good sounding organ but you do get a little bored after a while Since virtual pipes are virtually free and take up no floor space this would be my chance to have those ranks that we never had Post Horn Tuba Kinura Oboe Per cussions Piano Diaphone etc My plans were big but my stop rail was small 50 stops is hardly a down payment on a 20 rank or gan needed twice that Well it turned out that my planets were still lined up pretty
13. you know where a real theatre pipe organ did not exist originally found my love for the theatre organ sound listening to Tony Fenelson playing the thea i a a ee eg ee ee eee _ rrr Tweaking A Corn 6S0 pipe speakers with echo not having a Glockenspiel the switch and a Leslie hookup Solo manual stop selection is that won t work as is with any better though not standard Leslies own also have a with how most theatre pipe service manual photocopy organ Solo manuals are speci The Conn is not as beefy con fied struction most notably in the The Complex bus rods are a construction of the pedal little temperamental what can board as my old Rodgers ora be used to clean them 2 manual early digital theatre The organ lacks a fifth harmon style Allen still have at this ic Flute Tibia stop there is a time With the exception of continued on page 3 Building the Rodgers Office Depot 3 20 always liked theatre organ and had pretty much written the played reasonably well but pretty much doubted that would ever have one of my whole thing off and moved on played tenor banjo then a bit of piano and eventually got own As you are all too into Austrian button accordi aware theatre organs are not ons which still play easy to own like a piano A few months ago things began never liked electronic organ j ever liked electronic organs to get interesting around my much an
14. committed Carter Bidwell e First convention went to Richmond 1986 Wings at Byrd Theatre John Wall e playing the Capital Theatre Organ 3 15 Wurlitzer in situ in the 70 s have want ed to capture the same sound ever since Richard B Ahlvin e suppose it was the first encounter with the Robert Morton 3 8 in the Temple Theatre in Meridian MS Donald Hansen e have had 2 real Wow moments in the 50 years of playing organ The first was bringing the fabled Co lonial Kimball 4 32 up out of the pit on Father s Day 1993 with my entire family in the audience In all my years of playing up to that Continued page 2 A Mincllineeus Article Jack Moelmann For a long time now Bucky Red dish your ETONE Editor has been asking pleading and everything else for me to write up some thing for the newsletter On each occasion said of course would and that was the end of that until the next time he asked Well thought it time to do something about those requests Many of you know me and prob ably many don t My name is Jack Moelmann started ETONE around 1991 have been a member of ATOS since 1967 am currently on the ATOS Board of Directors and have been for some 25 years now am a past President of ATOS Honorary Member Inductee in the ATOS Hall of Fame and concert organ ist How humble can one be am a retired Colonel in the US Air Force contin
15. d the good ones were house There was a pedal far too expensive anyway So board continued on page 4 useless synthetic chime on the Solo manual I d like to rewire this up a couple of octaves as a Sub Tierce 3 1 5 to go along with the Tibia 16 8 5 1 3 set Is this too difficult or impossible to do Also it sounds like the Tibias somehow go partially through the Main channel the highs don t shake enough through the on board Leslie is there a way of changing this The pedals except for the Tuba amp Toy Counter are on the Flute channel something that also an noys me about the above men tioned Allen and hence through the Leslie ld like to be able to run them entirely through the Main channel when on external speakers There is a Noticeable Difference in a Conn Main channel played through a Peavy Bass Cabinet with 2 10 s and a 5 subwoofer using a Fender Bassman head did a test run using an Ampthenol to 2x1 4 adaptor put together for taking the 251 51C signals into other sound equipment There are 2 blank spaces in the Accompaniment and in the Solo possibly a place for MIDI controller contacts if a new or good condition bus rod s could be found The manual rhythm unit is surpris ingly usable with some exception to the Air Brake crash cymbal on the pedals oddly enough the early digital Allen also has an analog rhythm section and it generally does not sound as good as t
16. ds mounted in my con sole in FIGURE 4 The photo in FIG URE 4 was taken prior to my remov ing the extra cards Next Step Making Music The next installment of these articles should be the last one will include pictures of my completed project and discuss sound engine options their installation and programming and the sound engine and audio systems selected for my organ Robert L Coulter 1 4
17. e cables please enlist the aid of someone who does Experience tends to be an excellent teacher have been building my VTPO as have been writing these article and believe that have some lessons learned from my ex perience thought was familiar with the effort techniques and time that would be required to install and wire all of the digital cards and systems necessary to digitize my console Fortunately my ideas regarding the effort required particularly the time required were both reasonable and pretty much what expected However found most of the console additions and rebuilds that though would be easy and quick to complete were not Many things that sound simple on paper turn out to be much more complex in the doing My console additions and rebuilds included stripping the console of everything and sending it out to be refinished rebuild ing the mechanism for the swell shoes adding sub bolsters to each side of the console updating the console lighting from incandescent lamps to LEDs and replacing the acrylic music rack with a Wurlitzer style one Another console addition was toe stud terraces that had seen on an Allen GW 4 was very impressed by the se and thought could replicate them for my organ was able to use a good friend s well equipped woodworking shop to do the work but they took a lot of band saw ing gluing clamping and painting See Fig ure for a photo of half of th
18. e completed toe studs and terraces At this point do not think this was a good use of my time Yes they are installed and they look good but now think they took too much of my time away from complet ing my VIPO recommend that you do not add too much to your project as you proceed as doing so can consid erable extend the time to complete your project also recommend that you exercise some discipline in your construction work When you disassemble an older organ that you are rebuilding keep store and label everything you remove You never know when you may need some original part You will also be purchasing lots of hard ware other than the electronic parts for the organ You may find bags of screws on your work bench that you bought for some purpose a week ago and not remember their purpose So it is most advisable to keep every thing sorted and labeled or you may find you spend more time looking for hardware and tools than you do actu al building It is also advisable to keep records of everything you buy where you bought the item s and their receipts You may find later in the project you may need to purchase more of an item or an item does not work and needs to be replaced under warranty Additionally you will have created some spreadsheets that contain the details of the specifications and wiring of your VTPO Make sure you keep these documents up to date You will find as you progress in your c
19. e the purpose of describing my VTPO project Housekeeping In reviewing the first two articles in this se ries believe there are a few issues that should have discussed First hope that anyone attempting to build their own VTPO should exercise all of the safety precautions that one should use when using tools and the equipment required to build their project will not attempt to discuss all of these con cerns here as they vary considerably with the complexity of one s project but do recommend wearing safety glasses as a mini mum In addition to cutting and installing wiring you may also be doing some wood working so please read understand and follow the instructions for all of the tools and devices you use in building your VTPO If you are building a VTPO from scratch or rebuilding an older organ you will be doing some electrical design work In particular you will be designing the 120 volt AC power wiring and the 12 and 5 volt DC wiring for your console You should follow good elec trical practice and the National Electrical Code when doing this You may be sur prised at the amount of power your VIPO may require so you need to ensure that the size of the wiring and its connectors are adequate If your project has stop action magnets SAMs you will find you will be installing a rather large DC power supply that may require larger cables than you may be used to working with If you do not know how to size thes
20. eslie and a Ham mond PR 40 The sound was dramatically improved Since that time have added to my barrage of speakers and currently have 88 individual speakers built into 28 speaker cabi nets or enclosures The smallest speaker cone is about one inch and the largest is the sub woofer which boasts a 30 Electro Voice speaker to capture the bass of the Rodgers which does have a 32 stop on the pedal After coming back from Germany in 1971 bought a Hammond H 100 which was a self contained organ but had 2 full manuals and 25 note pedal board a great improvement over the L 100 still have both of these organs the L 100 is here in the house and the H 100 is up in my house in Lake Geneva Wisconsin interrupt this flow if there really is any flow in this article to ask that if you are interested to visit my Rodgers organ and a video gallery with more than 50 direct links to YouTube on the internet Within the past few weeks uploaded volumes l 6 of me playing the Hammond H 100 at my house before this one in Omaha Nebraska Check it out or just go to YouTube and search for Jack Moelmann H 100 and that should give you a list of videos you can watch As long as we re at this pause in the flow if you want to communicate with me my email address is lt Jack Moelmann com gt or if you want a real thrill why not do what prefer to do and that is talk on the phone 618 632 8455 While we may or may not be
21. est balance between flexibility and the amount of technical setup involved Miditzer is more basic and sim pler to set up while jOrgan is more flexi ble but requires some real software knowledge You can learn all about Haupt werk and listen to samples at lt www hauptwerk com gt There are also some hardware alternatives where you don t use an office computer at all Artisan makes a black box sound engine and Midi Concepts makes a sort of self contained virtual organ So there are alternatives for various levels of technical skills How does it all go together Haupt werk running on your PC is sort of the relay and chest work Then you buy a sample set from Paramount Key Media or Milan Digital Audio which is essentially yours pipes There are sounds bytes of every pipe from an actual theatre organ somewhere They contain many gigabytes of data and come on DVDs because they are too big for CDs Hauptwerk takes the MIDI requests from the keys and stops then plays the appropriate samples sort of like a lightning fast juke box A virtual organ system consists of the fol lowing parts e A console with a MIDI output or some Casio MIDI keyboards stacked up e A personal computer with a MIDI USB adapter so the computer can read the MIDI signals e A sound system to take the comput er s headphone output and make it bigger e Hauptwerk software sample set 700 2000 depending on features
22. good In searching for a console met a guy online from Utah who just happened to have a Rodgers stop rail that needed a home We measured It was close enough to risk it sent him a check and UPS showed up with the goods in a few days We took it right out and stacked it on top of the existing rail to see what Franklin Wurlitzer would look like It was awesome Of course there was still one problem with my new stop rail My console looked like its clothes didn t fit anymore the case needed to grow 5 taller This probably sounds daunting but really you just add very wide trim to the sides also widened the front for better proportions by adding some new checks than made a new roof for it could have just widened the roof though with some clever trim The existing struc ture was unchanged so the original stop rail swings up for easy access just as before The new stop rail is just pegged on top and is easily lifted off Aside from some stain and varnish I m about ready to convert the console to Midi Now anyone who s peeked inside an elec tronic organ that these is a lot of scary stuff in there but that s all gone There are only switches left just as you d find in a pipe organ console Not having actuated stops keeps it very simple There are nothing but switches could just get an Artisan kit and hook a wire from every key or switch to an input much like wiring a contact board
23. hase blower and several power supplies There are also 3 Leslie Speaker cabinets 6 reverberation units 6 power amplifiers for l6 channels of audio through all of the speak ers mentioned above It produces a great sound There are such novelty things as the famous dancing ducks and Santa s marching band wind chimes zimblestern slide whistles and other boat train and car whistles This stuff is all connected through an electric relay system MIDI is not used for the connection of these devices There is however MIDI with four sound modules Overall it is very complicated but flexible to play and a mainte nance nightmare So what s the last thing am going to add to my Rodgers here at the house Several large organs have a stop which is a Trumpet En Chamade which is a large trumpet mounted horizontally in front of the pipe chamber casing and tends to be quite loud but has a unique effect The stop is not generally used for ensemble playing but for solo applica tions am going to have a 37 note Kimball trumpet mounted in the ceiling of my music room which will operated on 5 of wind pressure which is a lot It will probably be heard across the street But why not have one It should sound great and look very impressive The 37 notes will go up three octaves from the C below middle C The stop tab will read State Trumpet think will bring this to a close always invite anyone who is in the St Louis
24. he one on the Conn There was an added Leslie Kit in the organ that takes the 51C out audio signal and motor control from the on board Leslie and feeds it into a box with a multipin plug l don t have the Specs in front of me also have a 2 channel Leslie that came off a 2 channel theatre style Lowery that has some less pins than the Conn add on also sal vaged the Switching Box two three position switches and an On Off button in the middle and multipin socket off of the unit from the Lowery Both its Leslie and a small Leslie built cabinet with two angled stationary 10 speakers not too unlike a Bose radio cabinet have AC power supplied from line cords the Real Leslie cabinet has a grill cloth front I think 2 10 s possibly augmented by a stationary tweeter for the main probably a 15 bass speaker and a Rotosonic unit for the Flutes The organ has the Type II reverb kit added I d like to get the old Chif Harmonic I amp ll tabs back and mount the reverb on a knob under the keydesk but assume these are long gone and impossible to find The added Harmonic options would help with the limited Great mutations remember readying a story where someone mentioned roasting an output stage in a similar vintage Conn attempting to hook up a digital reverb effects unit I d like not to repeat this mistake The 650 Fun Master envelope repeat unit is different The Tibia Repeat is a
25. ion file you will need to install it on your organ Artisan has detailed in structions in their Micro MIDI Control System Implementing the Artisan Micro MIDI Control System manual for accomplishing this However will summarize what you do here You will need use of a PC preferable a laptop since they are easier to work with at your VIPO console This PC should have a MIDI connection or MIDI adapter installed on it You start the installation process by connecting the MIDI IN con nector of your first MIDI controller card to the MIDI OUT connector of your last MIDI controller card to the MIDI IN connector of your laptop PC This establishes a loop which allows the uConfig program to com municate with all of the MIDI controller cards and download the appropriate pro gramming defined in your configuration file This may sounds a bit complicated but Artisan provides diagrams in their docu mentation to make this easier When you are ready to download your configuration file you will run the uConfig program from your PC which will lead you through the process This program will check for syntax errors in your definition file and if it finds problems with your defini tion it will display the line in your configu ration file that needs to be corrected You will correct that line and attempt to down load your file again You may find several such errors in your file which you will have to correct as necessary Ultimately the uConfig
26. ional residence in Mableton GA remark of the evening came from Mark Convention in Providence RI followed Since that time Bucky has opened his home Herman who sat with Joe That man is WE ANAE I CAN cae GEE WCA to any and all who have wanted to hear and full of great stories Indeed From there it had toes tapping across the floor and play this marvel In addition over the past was back to Bucky s with a small group for balcony Mark then slowed the tempo few years he has sponsored numerous well an evening of music An evening indeed for an intimate performance of Cole attended concerts featuring such artists as that included Jelani playing the piano parts Porter s I Concentrate on You before Ron Rhode Jelani Eddington Lew Williams of Rachmanoff s Third Piano Concert on he took us back to the Toons with a Chris Elliott Mark Harman David Gray Bucky s upright player piano That display Harry Warren medley and wrapping up Donnie Rankin Ken Double Richard Hill and was a portent of things to come with Bernie Wayne s classic Vanessa others A weekend at Bucky s has always The formal program was rounded out been a remarkable event starting with a 8 by Donnie Rankin who began with a saturday evening party Andopem congo saad spectacular arrangement of All is Fair in Love and War Donnie then filled a request from James Thrower most capa culminating with the Sunday afternoon con cert in a h
27. ive and meant for use in grounding in your home circuit breaker box where the power enters your home They make several sizes and they are available at most hardware stores FIGURE 6 shows a couple of smaller ground bars used to distribute the 12 volt DC power to half of my RDBs These grounding bars are also useful when you are wiring your single point ground system Smoke Testing Now that you have completed this part of the wiring it is time to check the wiring and power up your organ for the first time In amateur radio we hams typically have built several electronic projects over the years and have all experienced smoke emanating from your just completed projects In our early experience as hams this is common enough that we sort of expect this when we first plug in a new project hope this does not happen to us when we first plug in our console for the first time However we do need to check and recheck the wir ing particularly all of the 120 volt AC 12 volt DC and 5 volt DC wiring Make sure that the polarity of all of the DC wiring is correct and that no wires are touching that should not be Make sure that there are no unconnected wires This is easier to do if all of our wiring is neat and orderly Once we have checked all of the wiring we can then plug things in for the first time would suggest that you power up the vari ous systems the first time individually l e disconnect the 2 volt and the 5 volt con
28. me teacher and Don when Jelani and Mark and Donnie and Ken nie is Jelani s student making for a Double are playing So it really turned into close relationship of musical ideas one long concert and jam session with within the greater arc of creativity most sitting and listening over a several Logistically as the afternoon devel hours musical feast oped Jelani might be on the piano The 20 minute programs were well accompanying Mark on the organ but described in the chapter newsletter review most of the afternoon was the oppo of the program site with Mark on the piano accom Jelani Eddington kicked off the festivities with panying Jelani on the organ and e i accompanying is al he harder Good News then took the audience on an ompanying is always the harde orchestral journey through the Walker s many task through song after song ar rangement after arrangement key voices with selections such as Chopin s Waltz L R Ken Double Bucky Reddish Mark Harman Jelani Eddington Donnie Rankin after key Sometimes he was joined by Don cal cooperation between the three artists nie on the piano in four handed playing and exceeded anything this author has ever in one of the most entertaining moments observed in a half century of music Be Donnie tall and long armed stood over Jelani sides that it was just plain fun as the enthu playing the Solo Manual of the organ to siastic response of the audience dem
29. ngs could be synthesized So that is a little bit about the Hammond G 100 Back around 1964 Hammond PAGE 6 Installed one in the main auditorium of Bradley University which is the college went to in Peoria IL had several opportunities to play on and with it With the advent of CDs and all of the digital recording media lest we not forget what came before and that was tape be it reel to reel 8 track or cassette While not directly on the subject of organs a little tutorial on cassette tapes is offered for your information The cassette was not conceived for music Music only became possible with improved tape formulations and when Ray Dolby introduced a con sumer version of his professional noise reducing system He called it Dolby B He later developed Dol by C which further reduced tape hiss but was more critical Later Dolby S was introduced It had better noise reduction and was less critical than C and playback with Dolby B was acceptable Dolby S appeared online in more costly decks because Dolby would only license it only for decks which meet strict performance standards This includ ed correctly aligning heads Align ment takes time so manufacturers were often sloppy in this department The result was that tapes from one deck may sound dull on another if one or both decks were incorrect ly aligned For a quality recording both bias and Dolby Level
30. ome overflowing with enthusiastic people ar bly with his own treatment of Jerome Kern s All The Things You Are and concluded with a thorough treatise on As some of you know in Tolkien s hobbit culture rather than receiving gifts on his birthday a hobbit gives gifts to all his friends Though Bucky is what the hobbits would call music from Star Trek a big person he has exceeded them all But that was only the beginning After with what has before a tradition on his birth the eating began Ken Double took to day Bucky s Birthday Bash now in its third the keyboard for his unsurpassable big band style of playing Then the after year is an event to which Bucky invites sev eral artists to play throughout the day as noon evolved into an hours long jam people come and go and eat The way it On Saturday the big day the proposed session There was a solo or two at first works out most people come and don t go idea was that the artists each play for 20 but that soon changed until the evening when a group finally departs minutes followed by refreshments Then to a local restaurant for more formal eating the artists would take turns playing and Maybe the remarkable nature of talking and eating like the others while what happened was due to the syner everyone enjoyed the music and company gy of origins Jelani and Mark were But who wants to hang around and talk taught by the sa
31. on Jelani s Great and Accompaniment eventually strated elbowing Jelani and Donnie has a lot of el bows off the keyboards leaving him shrug ging and playing the pedals At one point someone called out Play 999 something from South Pacific Jelani launched into what became a suite from that show accompanied by Mark and Donnie and followed it with selections from a wide varie ty of shows Phantom of the Opera The Sound of Music The King and I and many others too numerous to name or even re member The level of unrehearsed creativity and music In music it is axiomatic that artists leave them wanting more and certainly despite having listened for several hours on that Saturday afternoon there was no doubt that Jelani Mark Donnie and Ken left eve ryone wanting more Well there s always next year larry Davis PAGE Da lt Yourself eatu Organ Part 3 In Parts and 2 of these articles discussed the process of developing the specifications for my virtual theatre pipe organ VTPO project and described the process of digitiz ing the VTPO console In this installment will discuss the details of wiring and digitizing the console The ETONE Newsletter Editor has approved my adding an additional installment to these articles You may remember that in previous articles had promised that there would be three articles now believe that four articles will better serv
32. on struction you will be making some modifications to the design so you need to make sure your documenta tion shows these changes This docu mentation is important as you will need it when it is time to write the organ definition file Wiring The Console discussed the Artisan digital compo nents used in my VTPO in my last article published in May 2010 The wiring of these components is rea sonably straight continued on page 10 PAGE II Da lt Yourself eatu Organ Part 3 forward but there are a few things to keep in mind The Artisan Serial Input Boards SIB and the Artisan Rank Driver Boards RDB will consume most of your wiring time Every key switch pedal etc located on your console will need to be wired to a SIB Hopefully you will have developed a written plan that labels your SIBs and RDBs such as the Pictorial Flow Diagram FIG URE 2 Use your plan to position the SIBs and RDBs in a logical location to ensure that existing wiring will be long enough to con nect to the SIBs and RDBs and that they will be easy to access after construction is completed You will also need room to run and mount the cables between these cards In my project the SIBs and RDBs for the SAMs are placed on small boards fixed to back of the stop rails This makes wiring these boards easier as you can re move the stop rail from the console and place it on a table where this wiring is much easier to accomplish If
33. on the sub ject of Hammond Organs have been asked a couple of times about the biggest Hammond built Some think it was the X 66 but it wasn t Some have commented to me that they actually heard a recording of a Hammond which sounded like a real pipe organ Hammond did make a few large instru ments They were called Hammond Grand 100 series They used actual 2 manual Klann pipe organ consoles with tripper set combination actions 2 rows of stop tabs 8 toe pistons 2 expression pedals a crescen do pedal and no drawbars The Grand 100 or G 100 was a grandi ose last chance effort to prove what could really be done with tone wheels in a church organ configuration if cost were no ob ject However cost always played a major role All things considered the Grand 1 00 was a technical success Original selling price was 13 750 including power amps and four tone cabinets Hammond s main objective was to create a console that was equipped exactly like a pipe organ There were no external or visible clues that the sound source was generated by tone wheels Previous Ham monds had only nine drawbars The G 100 had 12 harmonics derived from a standard generator with 9 tone wheels and their 2 additional harmonics 7th and Ith derived from an extra half set of tone wheels which were tuned to a different set of frequencies to better approximate the needed harmonics With a total of 14 harmonics better reeds and stri
34. pplies on the interior of the right side when looking at the rear of the console installed a surface mounted box PAGE Do lt Yourself eatu Organ Part 3 then ran wiring from the 5 volt DC power supply to each of the MIDI controllers and to the Lighted Piston Serial input Drive card You do not need to run 5 volt DC power to the SIBs or RDBs as they get their power from the telephone cables that run from them to the MIDI controllers As you devel op your wiring plan you also need to re member that all negative grounds of all devic es should go to a single point ground l e you need to provide wiring and grounding bars to provide for this My console requires 12 volt DC power to be run to the RDBs to power the magnets in the SAMs These magnets use a good bit of power when activated Thus wiring to these RDBs needs to be substantial recommend that if you do not know how to size this wiring to seek help from someone who does My 12 volt power is rated at 55 amps at 2 volt DC This is required even though my organ is only of moderate size The RDBs have fuses installed on their boards however also make sure that your 12 volt DC power supply has fuses installed on their 12 volt outputs as well When running the 5 and 12 volt DC power wiring you will find that you will need to branch out to multiple devices from your power supplies One handy de vice for doing so is a grounding bar These grounding bars are inexpens
35. s that come from Office Depot In other words the sounds are all generated or more accurately retrieved by an office computer Because the sound engine software is written specifically to emulate pipe organs every nuance of organ behavior is modeled in amazing detail They even include things like the effects of pressure drop that results from playing too many pipes at once MIDI sampled organs are not new but what has changed drastically is the level of detail in both the samples and the processing of effects Also there are full theatre organ sample sets available rather than just assorted organ sounds from who knows where This is all possible because modern office computers have become so enormously powerful Top quality digital audio CDs are sampled at rates like 44 000 times per se cond but most any office computer today can do several billion operations per second So your computer can do something like 100 000 things between the individual data points on an audio CD More colorfully put in the time it takes your middle C vox reed to flip back and forth your computer can read a couple novels go to Paris for lunch and solve a couple hundred Rubik s cubes As with digital photography the game has changed and the electronic organ world will never be the same again know of at least three VTPO programs Hauptwerk Miditzer and jOrgan Haupt werk from Germany is the most popular because it gives the b
36. troller is actually a computer that needs pro gramming just as your PC or MAC does before they will work The programming of the MIDI controllers is done using an Artisan program called uConfig and an organ definition file This definition file is a text file the defines all of the characteristics of your VTPO l e it tells the uConfig program how it should program each MIDI controller to interpret the sig nals it gets what it is supposed to do with them and what signals the MIDI controllers should send An example of this is that the appropriate MIDI controller needs to be programmed to recognize when a middle C is pressed on the great division key board and check to see whether SAMs or other controls have been activated and then send the correct MIDI signal to where it will be used to play the appropriate note ina sound engine or activate the valve on the appropriate pipe in a pipe organ This uConfig program compiles the information from your definition file into computer instructions to all of the MIDI controllers in your organ You can get samples of definition files from Artisan Instruments Inc and I 3 PAGE Do lt Yourself eatu Organ Part 3 the MIDI controllers in your organ You can get samples of definition files from Artisan Instruments Inc and revise them to meet your project s specifications Artisan s Micro MIDI Control System Implementing the Artisan Micro MIDI Control System manual gi
37. ued on page 6 The WOW factor ci ons PAGE 2 Agi Point had never brought the console up out of the pit The second was playing as iiil a session musician for the soundtrack of the recent Martin Scorcese HBO series Boardwalk Em pire which was done on the fantastic Lowes Jersey Wonder Morton Diane Whipple e fell in love with pipe organs when was 6 both Craig Browning had a Rodgers trio at one point and had to give it up when moving it also had de veloped electrical problems recently got a basically work ing Conn 650 with a few extra goodies a not so interesting add on Min O Matic beatbox which removed and a set of Vince Kurpan Know where these My parents have been ATOS members since pipes are found the 60 s so I ve been around theatre organs a long time In 1973 when I was in high school we installed a Page 2 6 theatre or gan in our house ETONE NEWSLETTER N a classical one in church tre organ at the Regent Theatre and Dendy Thea tre on vinyl recordings and a theatre organ at a children s Christmas pro gram at the Aurora IL New WOW moments happen Paramount where sat everyday Let s give others the directly between the or opportunities to hear and ex gan chambers perience a theatre pipe organ Leith Ewert Who knows you just might create a WOW moment for e grew up in the country someone
38. ves de tailed instructions for writing your definition file and if you are reasonable adept at writing simple computer programs you should be able to do this yourself FIGURE 7 shows a few lines of a sample definition file If you desire Artisan for a reasonable fee will write your configuration file for you Sample of Partial Organ Definition File DIVISIONS division great 8 61 c1n36 division acc 8 61 c2n36 division solo 8 61 o3n36 division pedal 8 32 o4n36 STOP INPUT EXAMPLES hit Ptib8 cl ni it Pklaxon cl6n2 bit Bklaxon c16n3 it mainltrem cl6n4 it main2trem cl6n5 bit sololtrem cl6n 6 bit solo2trem cl6n7 sete COUPLERS coupler 1 great to great 8 kcoupler 1 acc to acc 8 kcoupler 1 solo to solo 8 xcoupler 1 pedal to pedal 8 sete TREMULANTS tremdef 1 sololtrem 4 9 40 tremdef 2 solo2trem 5 2 50 tremdef 3 mainltrem 3 9 45 tremdef 4 main2trem 4 6 55 RANKS trank rpost 16 ranks posthorn arnk channel 2 rank rtuba 16 ranks tubahorn16 arnk rete When you write or edit a configuration for your VTPO make sure you do not use any Windows based text editors as they may place hidden control codes in their files that can cause problems with your defini tion files would recommend that you use an editor such as the Programmer s File Editor 32 bit which you can download from the Internet for free When you have obtained or completed your definit
39. you ever need to remove the stop rail for maintenance later on you will only need to disconnect the few tele phone cables that go to the Artisan Micro Midi MIDI controllers and the power wiring Continued on Page 2 Solo Serial Input Card 1 Aucoceceeceveceocoeceece Leet cc Pictorial Flow Diagram Great Serial Inout Card 2 Brucucecescovececconcecce te To 5 N Sp no E E a0 38 F8 BG 25 9 Serial Input Card 3 Accomp D of 9 Meccocecoccececcoc eceecoeci man JR III 97I gt 292I gt gt gt E E9 Pedal Toe Studs 1 25 Serial Input Card 8 Stops 1 64 Stops 65 124 Serial Input Card 4 EOE OEEC Serial Input i PERETE ee ctw wes pa DETON ESET PE o2 r922222222929I2272II22I7I22 im Se ri al n p ut 3 1 Lighted Pistons 1 6 ESSE ALES gt 23 779739939 I7 gt 97 Beucuccesececece ct peo ccecerce w VG RR RU ke Pistons amp Toy Counter Lighted Piston Input 8 Driver 5 Card uMIDI 5 uMIDI 4 uMIDI6 yMIDI7 pMIDI8 o amp 19 o amp To Audio System 5 eS LC m 6 LCD Display i W HA Negative LEGEND op onl anes UMIDI Micro MIDI Controller onnecte Together Green Telephone Cable Blue MIDI Cable To Magnet Common FIGURE 2 Stop Magnet Driver Cards also mounted all of the SIBs that connect to the keyboards and piston rails on a remova ble panel that can be removed with
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